Company Girl Coffee 1.30

Welcome! I'm one of the new Company Girls, come on in! ( you can join us too, just sign up here!) You're visiting sunny Decatur, Alabama today near Huntsville and the Tennessee border. Our family has been in Northern Alabama for about a year now. Huge change from the tiny, rural town in Southern Arkansas we came from! We're a blended family of six, 1 away at college and one soon to be married oldest daughter, and two teens at home. I am a writer and communications production/marketing business owner . Working from home, homeschooling our twelve year old daughter, coming home four years ago from full time as an educator, working as a teacher, consultant, and presentor. My husband is a Department of Defense Administrator and at times leaves the country for six months at a time to luxurious places like Iraq and Kuwait. We work with stepfamilies and couples under stress in their marriages as our ministry, Creating a Joyful Placed Called Home. God has used what we thought was hopelessly broken experiences to rebuild something lovely out of the pieces.
All that to say.....I very often am running in circles and have no idea where the day went!

This week we had a quieter week. No seasonal sports activities, no one was ill, everyone was in town for the week! I began reworking my personal daily routines via the new daily schedule. At first overwhelmed by what didn't even get a spot on the schedule, by Thursday, it felt good to recognize that slow and steady was winning the race on alot of my stress producers...five minutes at a time! I am NOT organized naturally, so anything that has been learned was learned by the 2 x 4 method of "I have to change, I can't take this any longer" and believe me, where efficient home keeping is concerned I had a lot of tolerance for the imperfect! I won two cars in Mary Kay before I ever recognized that lipsticks could be organized by name in abc order...organization simply doesn't occur to me naturally! :)

We have a new lab puppy in the house, now you have to know we also have 2 black and white fluff balls already in the house, and two labs out in the yard, one rabbit, and 4 gold fish.....so the last thing this girl needed....but our fifteen year old son is going through a difficult time with the new town, new school, new situations as his natural dad remarries, and we felt it would be an important thing (his dog was stolen the day we left to move)
I cannot tell you the value you have all brought to my life. To hear your voices via your comments, to read some of your blogs, well, it has been a blessing! I am still in the "I'm doing solitary with a 12 year old and a business" mode sometimes in the new town without as many outside connections to other women as we're still new in town. While I talk to clients almost every day, conversations about life, home, struggles, and joys are rarely in my world right now...especially with like minded girls, wives and moms!

Girls I can't thank you enough for sharing yourselves and your experiences.....and of course, thank you to Rachel Anne for hostessing a place to fill my cup.....I am so thankful for you all. Please come and sit by the fireplace, we'll kick off our shoes, curl up with cocoa, coffee and I can probably find hot tea, but I have no idea how to make it! Sit a spell and let's get to know one another!

hugs hugs hugs,
Shanna (pronounced like Hannah with an S)
or call me Sweetie, like everyone else in Alabama does
(I'm just thankful they didn't nickname me Bootsy!)